Hamada Abdelrahman, PhD
Associate Professor of Soil Chemistry and Fertility
Soil Science Dept., Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza 12613 Egypt
Soil Science Dept., Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza 12613 Egypt
Lead and Zn contaminated soils, after sewage sludge (SS) or industrial wastes (IW) applications, were incubated with 5 and 10 mmol kg–1 soil of diethylene triamine penta acetic acid (DTPA) and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) or with 10 and 20 mmol kg–1 soil of citric acid for up to 60 days. Consequently, Amaranthus retroflexus L. and Chenopodium album L. were tested in a chelate-assisted Pb and Zn phytoextraction greenhouse trial. In both incubated soils, the organic (Org) bound Pb increased over the incubation period, simultaneously, with a decrease in the oxide bound (Oxid) and carbonate bound (Carb) Pb fractions. Similar observations was found for Zn fractions during the incubation course of both contaminated soils. The EDTA was more effective in increasing the exchangeable Pb at 40 days of incubation in both soils whereas the DTPA was more effective in increasing the exchangeable Zn at 40 days of incubation. The pot experiment showed that Amaranthus retroflexus L. was more effective than Chenopodium album L. in the phytoextraction of Pb and Zn. The maximum amount of Pb and Zn Amaranthus phytoextracted in a 70-d growth period was 6.5 and 8.2 mg kg–1 soil, respectively, whereas the maximum phytoextracted amounts of Pb and Zn by Chenopodium were 3.9 and 3.5 mg kg–1 soil, respectively. Although EDTA and DTPA was more effective in redistributing metals among their fractions during incubation, higher removal of Pb and Zn was achieved after citric acid by Amaranthus. After environmental and economic evaluation, studied weed species can be used in chelate-assisted phytoremediation to decontaminate Pb- and Zn-contaminated soils.